The emotions of the victims are clear and complex -- their conflicts dominate our experience of the narrative as powerfully as all the devices telling us to look elsewhere for the movie's themes.
Comment
01/01/00
Funny Games (1998)
63
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:24
Fresh:15
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.5/10
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: A powerfully graphic film (even though no violence is ever shown on the screen itself) about an Austrian family who goes on a country vacation and become the victims of two cold-blooded psychopaths... [More]
Starring: Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Muhe, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering
Director: Michael Haneke
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Reviews for Funny Games
Top CriticRemarkably well-directed and played, the crisp images perfectly framed by cinematographer Jürgen Jürges for maximum effect.
01/01/00
One of the most gut-wrenching cinematic ordeals in recent memory.
02/14/01
What happened to the good old fashioned insane killer?
10/17/05
An ersatz nightmare, a pedant's lecture on sadism, and an intellectual's idea of a shock tactic.
01/01/00
What Haneke has actually done is to satirize the complex relationship between the story and the audience. On that level it's a triumph.
03/13/08
Haneke's snooty admonishments are disturbing because they're never self-critical.
05/03/06
Alternately infuriating and harrowing, Michael Haneke's Funny Games is a potent piece of shock cinema that thrives on making the audience uncomfortable.
03/05/02
This beautifully acted and paced German variant of Cape Fear ... is tricked out with a number of Brechtian devices to catch audiences in a voyeuristic trance.
01/01/00
Top CriticHaneke's film doesn't invite audience exploration; it pummels them with preordained conclusions.
03/20/08
The basic puzzle is why this sophisticated director chose this tired formula.
01/01/00
Top CriticHaneke has rational reasons for his movie's violence, but he still crosses lines more often than he justifies crossing them.
03/10/08
A sort of Austrian art-house Cape Fear by way of the new Cinema of Cruelty.
08/21/09
It's a film you might argue with, but its sparing use of on-screen violence, some extraordinarily protracted scenes and sensitive handling of thorny subject matter make it also a film you ought to see.
01/01/00
...one sequence featuring the manipulation of time by a character undermines everything that came before it...
08/01/03
A firestarter for post-screening arguments, alight with ghastly images and actions, and essayed by a spot-on cast and storyline that flows seamlessly from one nightmarish incident to the next.
01/01/00
If you want, this is a high-class Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
01/01/00
Sadistic, insufferable, clever, and relentlessly compelling.
04/17/02
As a metaphysical experiment in sadism, Funny Games is endorsed by negative responses.
11/01/05
Click to read the article
10/25/07
Latest News for Funny Games
February 20, 2008:
Exclusive: Funny Games' Guide to Home Invasion
Are you ready for the first mind-trip thriller of the year? We've got an exclusive tidbit from Michael Haneke's Funny Games -- a Users' Guide to Home Invasion, which might come... More...
September 17, 2007:
Trailer Bulletin: Funny Games
The trailer for Michael Haneke's remake of Michael Haneke's Funny Games is online, and MSN Video's got it. More...
August 24, 2006:
Tim Roth & Naomi Watts to Star in "Funny Games" Remake
Apparently the only thing wrong with Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" is that it isn't in English -- so get ready for the Americanized version, which will pair the... More...
May 19, 2006:
Naomi & Viggo to Make "Promises" with Cronenberg
After "A History of Violence," a whole bunch of us want to know what David Cronenberg's next project will be, and it looks like it'll be something called "Eastern... More...
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